What is vada pav? The Indian street food snack is the king of carbs on carbs

THE DISH

Vada pav, India

PLATE UP

Carbs: meet carbs. Here's some potato, and here's some bread. Consider yourself filled. There's actually a grand tradition of carbs-on-carbs for hearty snacking: Britain's chip butty; Italy's "pasta e patate"; Egypt's pasta-rice-lentil bomb kushari. In India, the king of the carb-on-carb snack is vada pav, Mumbai's favourite street food, and one delicious, hearty invention. Vada pav could be loosely described as a burger: the patty in this instance is one of spiced potatoes coated in chickpea batter and fried in ghee. That crisp patty is wedged into a white roll and topped with various chutneys – a dry, garlic-and-coconut chutney, a sweet tamarind sauce, a green chilli chutney – plus a whole green chilli. That's a lot of flavour and a lot of carbs, together in a handheld snack.

FIRST SERVE

Vada pav is as Mumbai as Sachin Tendulkar, and just as popular as the local cricket star. It was invented in the Maharashtrian capital in the mid 1960s, most probably by street-food vendor Ashok Vaidya, though another hawker, Sudhakar Mhatre, began peddling the snack around the same time. It became instantly popular with textile workers looking for cheap eats.

ORDER THERE

Your vada pav options in Mumbai are as numerous as they are delicious – for something unique, however, try Vitthal Vada Pav in Sewri (No.46 Chawl, Sewri Koliwada Road), which fries its vadas over a wood-fired hearth.

ORDER HERE

In Sydney, get your order in for vada pav at Mumbaicha Vadapav in Parramatta (facebook.com/VadapavinParramatta). In Melbourne, check out Gopi ka Chatka in Clayton (gopikachatka.com.au).

ONE MORE THING

Vada pav became something of a political symbol in the 1970s and 80s, when many of Mumbai's textile mills closed, and local right-wing group Shiv Sena encouraged those who had lost their jobs to start their own vada pav stalls.